


Sonsick

by tobeconquered



Series: more than I’m supposed to [2]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 07:56:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18232088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobeconquered/pseuds/tobeconquered
Summary: "I found me a hopeless case and resolved to love."





	Sonsick

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for your kind comments and wonderful welcome! You've successfully inspired me to keep posting :)
> 
> This one is based off the song Sonsick by San Fermin -- it's a bit of an abstract take on the song, but I hope you'll like it nonetheless. 
> 
> Many thanks again and I hope you enjoy!

     Of all the things he had expected - wanted - out of his weekend off, Carter showing up at his door fresh-faced and pretty wasn’t one of them.

     He so rarely sees her out of uniform it momentarily stuns him. The gentle swing of her skirt around her bare calves, the stiff denim of her collar playing with the tips of her blonde hair, somehow blonder in the sunshine, all serves to make his eyes harden.

     He thinks about asking her to leave, but it’s a fleeting thought. She’s still one of his own. At least for the next day or so. Until he loses himself completely. So, instead of closing the door against her, as the tactical part of his brain tells him to, he instead asks her why she’s here, in the only way he knows how.

      “Carter?”

      And they’re off.

     He half listens to her bumble through her lame excuse for showing up at his door in the first place. He purposely doesn’t acquiescence to her assertion it’s a funny coincidence she’s ended up here. They both know it’s not.

     Plus, he’s enjoying, just a little, watching her squirm. Good.  _It serves her right_ , he thinks, bitterly. 

     He only experiences a slight sense of shame when he realizes he doesn’t have any coffee, nor is his water filter fresh, nor his fridge stocked. All he has is a half-empty bottle of ketchup, Chinese leftovers from who knew when, and the two six-packs of Guinness he’d picked up from the gas station yesterday on his way home.

That’s what he offers and he’s surprised she takes him up on it. They try not to drink alone together if possible. They haven’t talked about it, of course, but the agreement stands nonetheless.

 _What the hell_ , he thinks, fingers closing tightly around the neck of a second bottle. He’ll be dead soon anyway. What’s he got to lose?

     So he brings her the beer, half dazed and half annoyed at her anxious energy. He’d wanted to relax this weekend — come to terms with his life and what it’s meant, not deal with whatever this fucked up mess is between them - with whatever she’s convinced herself she’s here to do.

     His mind is caught on that thought and his irritation with her when she gestures toward the photo on the wall and asks about Sarah. He feels like she’s punched him. Where the hell had that come from? And what did Carter care anyway?

     The truth was he didn’t talk to Sarah much anymore. There had been a couple of years where they’d called each other in desperate moments, taken refuge in one another’s arms and found release there, but when he’d started closing his eyes and seeing his 2IC, Jack had called the whole thing off.

     As far as he knew, Sarah was remarried and happy, but damn if he was going to give Carter the satisfaction of knowing she’d ruined him for even his wife. Ex or no.

     When she asks what he’s feeling, that tense smile painted across her pretty lips, he has to try hard not to roll his eyes. What is he _feeling_? How the hell should he know? His mood has been oscillating between frustration and something darker for the last several hours and he can’t tell if it’s him or the alien knowledge flooding his brain, but he knows that at this moment, looking at Carter brings up what he can only pinpoint as resentment.

     When he’s feeling more rational, he knows he’d never begrudge Carter her shot at happiness. He wants her to have everything this world and beyond has to offer and he’d never make his own feelings her burden to carry. When he’s feeling more rational, which he’s not. So, he asks if they can not talk about that either.

  
     He looks straight at her when she turns toward him to ask what he would like to talk about, partly because he knows exactly what he wants to talk about, and he knows it’ll reflect in his eyes if she sees his expression, and partly because looking at her continues to throw him off kilter, which he’s kind of digging in this odd limbo he’s in— half himself, half something else.

     He’s decided he likes playing with fire by the time she’s practically twitching, clenching her fists and biting her lower lip. He fingers the edge of the label on his bottle lightly and asks her to stay. Finish her beer. Wait an hour here with him.

     Alone.

     He sees something flash across her face that’s a little too familiar, a little too pleading and resigned at the same time, so he snaps his beer cap across the room and tries not to grimace when she calls him “Sir,” in her soft, smooth voice, and lays her guilty conscience at his feet.

     He assures her with what little restraint he has left because not sticking her head in that ancient device is _not_ what she has to be apologizing for.

     He cuts her off with a wave of his hand before she can tell him that nothing would be worth the loss of his life. First, because it’s not true, and second because he’s getting a little sick of this game.

     He lets the silence linger, because again, there’s something soothing to him about the way she seems frayed, on edge.

     It’s not that he doesn’t value what they have, the shades of intimacy they’re allowed, the fragile half-friendship they’ve built between them. It’s that if he’s going to die it’s not enough. It’s that now he’ll never have anything else, and not because of the regs that have served as an excellent excuse all this time. At this point, he’d screw the regs ( _literally_ , he laughs to himself), because he’s going to die anyway and it won’t matter. It’ll be their last little secret. The last piece of one another they take without asking. The last moment she has to bury ( _literally_ , he thinks again, more soberly) before she can move on again.

     But they won’t have even that. Not even a last goodbye, or a first goodbye, or whatever because she’s with what’s-his-fuck now, and Carter is nothing if not loyal.

     He should know.

     When she sighs breathily and lets out a slight whimper, it reminds him so much of the Sam behind the force field, the one he wouldn’t leave behind, that his control cracks.

     He sets his beer none too gently onto the coffee table and regards her with hard eyes that flash with warning.

     “For god’s sake, what is it, Carter?” he asks.

     Her eyes fill with tears and she doesn’t have to say what’s wrong. He knows, but the knowledge doesn’t make it sting any less, doesn’t make the wound that is his love for her any less raw.

     “I’m sorry,” she says, soft and low.

     Simple.

     Somewhere inside, that rational part of his being pipes in that he’s glad she won’t be alone, but he can’t remember that man right now; the man with honor, so he laughs in her face instead.

     “Think nothing of it, Carter.”

     He spits the words, and he knows his grin is bordering on feral. He can see her eyes begin to harden, too. Just slightly. Good. He wants to argue, to fight.

     “I do think of it,” she says with a harsher edge, her hand finding his shoulder. “You know I do.”

     He scoffs and ignores her nails as they dig into his shoulder.

     “Don’t do this. Not now. Don’t throw it all away now,” she beseeches him, and that does it. That simple phrase breaks his barriers entirely and he hopes she’s ready. Hopes they both are.

     He tears himself away from her.

     “Me?!” he nearly shouts.

     He’s standing now. Towering over her.

     “ _I_ shouldn’t throw this away.” He laughs, incredulous. “Fuck, Sam. I’m _dying_. I’m dying for my country. My planet. What I — and you— pledged to do from day one. I made the only choice there was to make. I didn’t run off with some...some...” he trails off, gesturing to where she’s sat on his sofa, stock still and seething, and he’s disappointed in himself because in the end, he can’t say it, can only stare at her hard and angry.

     “Some what?” she spits, standing now too, and he’d almost forgotten how much it turned him on that she nearly matches him in height, and it makes him even angrier that he remembers it at this moment.

     “You know exactly what, Major,” he bites, so close to her face he can see her bangs move with his breath.

     “You son of a bitch.” is all she says before she’s on him, her fingers in his hair, pulling at the strands at the back of his neck to force him closer, her other hand sneaking down to find his and pull it to her waist, gripping it there tightly.

     He’s confused and still angry, but if this is how she wants to fight, far be it from him to dissuade her.

     Her tongue is urgent, demanding, and he gives back as good as he gets until they’re both breathless. She grips the back of his head tighter now as they pant in each other’s faces, adding just an edge of pain.

     “You don’t think I dream about this? You think this has no effect on me at all?” She pushes herself against him for emphasis and they both moan when their hips collide.

     “Of course I do!” she says as she pushes him away roughly, creating space between them.

     “But Pete is nice. And -- and he treats me well.” She says to her folded hands, then she looks him in the eye to deal the final blow “and I think I could love him.”

     There’s a moment of silence in which they both just stare. Some of the pressure that had been building in him is gone now, but it’s been replaced by something worse, something dense that settles in his stomach and makes it hard to look at her. Resentment has never been his color.

     “Good for you,” he growls, picking up his beer and taking a long sip. “Now get out of my house.”

     She looks aghast for a moment. “That’s it?” she asks, with the nerve to look spurned as she sinks back into his couch. And just like that he’s angry again, the coal of resentment burning hot and bright.

     “What the fuck do you want from me, Sam? Absolution? Fine! You’re absolved. I’ll be dead in a few days anyway! Go - marry your police officer! Have his babies! What do I care? I’m your damn CO, not your husband, not your boyfriend, and certainly not your plaything!” 

     He stares at her hard, desperate, and he’s ashamed, so angry with himself that the tears streaming down her cheeks soften him.

     “Look, I get it. You made a choice with limited options. I get it.” he says.

 _But I don’t agree_ , is what he doesn’t grind out, the way he wants to, because what would it matter anyway? _I would have waited for you forever_ , is what he doesn’t burden her with. _I still love you and watching you walk away hurts like hell_ , is what he doesn’t say.

     And it’s because of the latter that he can’t leave it—them— like this. Especially if this is their last private conversation. He doesn’t want her last memory of him to be a bad one, even if it’s honest.

     He looks down at his shuffling feet before he looks up at her again. She’s still looking down, her tears wetting the front of her jacket, leaving dark marks on the light denim.

     “C’mere” he finally says, his chest aching, and the way she looks up at him, so tentative, makes his heart break altogether. He lowers himself to her side because he’d rather she hurt him, leave him, choose someone else over him a thousand times than to think he caused her real pain, anything lasting.

     “I’m sorry I yelled.” he says, then, “I’m sorry.” And again, without words, they both know what for: he’s sorry for the way this is ending. For the way things had to be. He’s sorry he’s leaving her.

     She wraps herself in his arms and he holds her gently, strokes her back, rubs the tips of her hair between his fingers while she cries and they both pretend this is just what friends do.

     Eventually, she falls asleep against his shoulder and he’s not far behind.

     When he wakes, he finds her gone, and though the fogginess in his head has thickened, Jack is suddenly very sure of what’s not worth it anymore.


End file.
